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Thursday, May 25, 2017

Student club asks court to halt policy that resulted in arrests for handing out Constitution

Kellogg Community
College censored club supporters in part because students ‘from rural farm
areas…might not feel like they have the choice to ignore’ them

The school claims the club supporters violated its Solicitation Policy, which
states that students and others must obtain permission from the school before
they engage in any expressive activity anywhere on campus, including
distribution of any written material. The lawsuit, Young Americans for
Liberty at Kellogg Community College v. Kellogg Community College, filed in January, explains
that the policy is unconstitutional for that reason, and also because it grants
college officials too much discretion to restrict the content and viewpoint of
student speech if it does not “support the mission of Kellogg Community College
(KCC) or the mission of a recognized college entity or activity.”

“Because public colleges have the duty to protect and promote the First
Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, we are asking the court to prevent KCC
from enforcing its unconstitutional policy while our lawsuit proceeds,” said
ADF Legal Counsel Travis Barham.

Travis Barham
Alliance Defending Freedom

“Like all public colleges, KCC is supposed to
be ‘the marketplace of ideas,’ but instead, it arrested these club supporters
for exercising their freedom of speech, and, ironically, for handing out copies
of the very document—the Constitution—that protects what they were doing.”

On Sept. 20 of last year, KCC students Brandon Withers and Michelle Gregoire,
along with three other YAL supporters were on a large, open walkway in front of
the Binda Performing Arts Center on KCC’s campus talking with students about
the club and handing out pocket-sized copies of the U.S. Constitution. Withers,
Gregoire, and the other supporters were not blocking access to buildings or
pedestrian traffic and were not interfering with any KCC activities or other
planned events on campus.

KCC administrators and campus security eventually approached them and said that
they were violating the Solicitation Policy because they had not obtained prior
permission from KCC, and that they were not allowed to conduct expressive
activity in this location on campus.

In the exchange, captured on
video, one of the administrators told the supporters that “engaging
[students] in conversation on their way to educational places” is a violation
of the Solicitation Policy because it is an “obstruction to their education” to
ask them questions like, “Do you like freedom and liberty?,” adding that he was
concerned that the students from “rural farm areas…might not feel like they
have the choice to ignore the question.”

The officials instructed Withers, Gregoire, and the others that they must
immediately stop engaging in their speech activities and leave campus. When
Gregoire and two of the other club supporters politely informed KCC’s chief of
public safety that they were going to continue exercising their First Amendment
freedoms by talking with students and handing out copies of the Constitution, he
arrested them and charged them with trespass. After ADF and allied attorney
Jeshua Lauka intervened, the charges were dropped, but the policies restricting
student speech remain in effect.

“Today’s college students will be tomorrow’s legislators, judges,
commissioners, and voters,” said ADF Senior Counsel Casey Mattox. “It makes no
sense for a tax-funded college to forbid students from advocating for our
constitutionally protected freedoms on their own campus. We hope the court will
act swiftly to stop this school from violating its students’ rights.”

Lauka, with the Grand Rapids law firm David & Wierenga, P.C. is serving as
local counsel in the case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western
District of Michigan.

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Faith on Trial is where we examine the influence of law and society on Christianity. Here we will look at those cases and events that impinge on the rights of Christians to fully practice their faith. Join us every Tuesday morning at 9 or listen to our re-broadcast Tuesday evening at 9 (Central). The program can be heard on IowaCatholic Radio: 1150 AM; 88.5 & 94.5 FM and streaming on iowacatholicradio.com. Host is Attorney and Deacon Mike Manno.